to you, is all that remains to me of Fortunio.



THE OUTLANDISH LADIES.


A mile beyond the fishing village, as you follow the road that climbs
inland towards Tregarrick, the two tall hills to right and left of
the coombe diverge to make room for a third, set like a wedge in the
throat of the vale. Here the road branches into two, with a
sign-post at the angle; and between the sign-post and the grey scarp
of the hill there lies an acre of waste ground that the streams have
turned into a marsh. This is Loose-heels. Long before I learnt the
name's meaning, in the days when I trod the lower road with slate and
satchel, this spot was a favourite of mine--but chiefly in July, when
the monkey-flower was out, and the marsh aflame with it.

There was a spell in that yellow blossom with the wicked blood-red
spots, that held me its mere slave. Also the finest grew in
desperate places. So that, day after day, when July came round, my
mother would cry shame on my small-clothes, and my father take
exercise upon them; and all the month I went tingling. They were
pledged to "break me of it"; but they never did. Now they are dead,
and the flowers--the flowers last always, as Victor Hugo says.
When, after many years, I revisited the valley, the stream had
carried the seeds half a mile below Loose-heels, and painted its
banks with monkey-blossoms all the way. But the finest, I was glad
to see, still inhabited the marsh.